You may have limited control over your circumstance but you can have total control over your emotional response to your circumstance. In this article you are going to learn two things that you can do to have total control over your emotions and have a positive response in a negative situation every time. The two steps are 1) Identify your triggers and 2) Replace your negative thoughts with positive actions.

Step #1: Identify Your Triggers

1. Keep a journal of all of the things that ticks you off for a week

2. Each time that you are ticked off, ask yourself “Why do I react negatively to this situation?” “What is it about this particular situation that gets to me in this way?”Write down your thoughts in numerical sequence in your journal.

3. At the end of the week, review your journal and identify what you were thinking each time that you felt ticked off.

Step #2: Replace Negative Thoughts with Positive Action

1. Now that you are able to identify the reasons why certain people and situations ticks you off, your next step is to write out several positive ways that you can respond to each of the items that you listed in your journal that ticks you off.

2. Practice role-playing with a partner. Pretend that you are in a particular situations or you are in the presence of the type of person that ticks you off.

3. You should practice until you are comfortable responding positively to the negative situation so that when you encounter a negative situation you are not triggered to respond with negative actions.

The way that you are going to maintain a state of inner peace is by not being stressed out. You have to learn how to be positive and stay calm in situations that are negative. At the end of this exercise, you will be able to take positive actions the next time that you encounter negative people and negative situation because you will not be taken off guard. You will not respond based on your emotional state at the time of the negative event because you will be prepared to recognize your triggers and you will be well rehearsed on how to take positive actions when you are faced in your trigger situations.